With the arrival of the "May Day" holiday, Beijing has become one of the most popular tourist destinations. Under the in-depth integration of culture, business and tourism, from shopping malls to catering enterprises and logistics, the Beijing market is fully prepared for this wave of consumption boom. In the view of those who choose to travel out of Beijing, the popularity of outbound travel and domestic long-term travel continues to rise this year, although the recent drop in air ticket prices has caused heated discussions, but popular destinations are still concentrated in traditional tourist cities. At the same time, problems such as difficulty in booking and purchasing tickets for popular scenic spots are expected to be highlighted, while concerts, music festivals, and sports events will fuel the "cultural tourism fever" and test the all-round management ability of the host city.
Consumers check in at Chaoyang Joy City. Enterprise/Courtesy photo
/Business district/Resort-style consumption characteristics are highlighted
In order to welcome tourists from inside and outside Beijing during the "May Day" period, Beijing's commercial projects have launched a series of activities in terms of new stores and experiential activities. In addition to traditional shopping, more and more business districts choose to enhance interactive attributes and emotional value, and the characteristics of resort-style consumption are more prominent.
A fun and easy-to-visit first store is still a good way for shopping malls to attract consumers. Xidan Joy City, Tangu TANKO and other projects will introduce a number of trendy toys, fashion, retail first stores. In addition, with the continuous expansion of the voice and consumption power of young customers, commercial projects "do what they like" and introduce popular culture that young people love.
The relevant person in charge of Chaoyang Joy City told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the current dimensional and cross-border IP can better touch the emotional value of young customers, "they need young, fashionable and trendy consumer products, and they need to meet the psychological experience in the shopping scene.
During the "May Day" period, Chaoyang Joy City cross-border joint youth label and entertainment IP landed in the first stop of the Acorn Republic-themed flash mob in Beijing, bringing popular animation peripherals such as "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Spirited Away", and the first stop of the Chiikawa-themed flash mob in North China, which previously attracted long queues from consumers, will also last until May 6.
In addition, the pet economy is increasingly becoming a popular format. Sensing the popularity of pet consumption, many shopping malls have created pet-friendly positioning and launched interactive activities around pets. During the "May Day" period, Beichen Hui will hold activities including makeup, catwalk, camping and other activities with pets as the protagonists, Shangpin + City Outlet will also hold a cute pet market, and THE BOX has formulated a "pet friendly convention" outside, eligible pets can enter the mall, and pet yoga activities and pet separation anxiety classes will also be held in the venue.
According to Bai Wenxi, chief economist of IPG China, the first store exhibition will bring freshness and attractiveness to consumers. At the same time, consumers pay more attention to their own feelings, and through related activities such as dimension, IP exhibition, and pets, shopping malls can establish an emotional connection with consumers, which can enhance consumers' satisfaction and sense of participation.
At present, consumption has shown an upward trend. The staff of COFCO Xiangyun Town said that the sales of outdoor products and retail formats in the venue have increased, and the proportion of reservations for entertainment experience and life service consumption has also increased to a certain extent.
The restaurant was packed. Beijing Business Daily reporter Guo Binlu / photo
/Catering/Footfall is expected to multiple
A reporter from Beijing Business Daily visited a number of catering companies and learned that many consumers have booked holiday dining places in advance. In terms of categories, in addition to traditional popular cuisines such as hot pot, Cantonese cuisine, Western food, and Japanese cuisine, the number of reservations for special local dishes such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, and Sichuan cuisine has increased significantly.
Taking Haidilao, a chain hot pot brand, as of April 25, Haidilao has received about 60,000 holiday meal reservations, and the number is still growing rapidly, among which the number of bookings in the sinking market has increased significantly. From the perspective of the Beijing market, restaurant reservations are also hot, and time-honored brands are favored by consumers. A reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned that the private rooms of time-honored brands such as Tongheju, Tongchunyuan, and Gulou Makai Restaurant have been basically booked. Tao Ran, deputy manager of Gulou Makai Restaurant, said, "The customer flow has increased significantly, and it is expected that the customer flow will increase several times during the 'May Day' holiday."
As the passenger flow increases, restaurant companies begin to prepare ingredients and coordinate personnel arrangements in advance. According to the relevant person in charge of Tongchunyuan, "the store greeted the food suppliers half a month in advance, and increased the order volume of the 'May Day' holiday to ensure sufficient supply." Like Tongchun Garden's signature dish squirrel osmanthus fish, the sales of single products will exceed 100 every day during holidays. The person in charge also bluntly said: the store has also made personnel planning in advance, all the people who can be called have been arranged to the front hall to help, and the logistics staff are riveting and ready to stay until the "May Day" holiday to show their skills. In terms of personnel, many time-honored brands such as Tongheju, Tongchunyuan, and Gulou Makai Restaurant have adopted a "staggered peak work system" and given employees a leave before the "May Day".
In addition, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned that this year's Lixia solar term is also in the small long holiday, and many time-honored brands have launched the first batch of new summer products. Lu Jianwei, manager of the barbecue season, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that in the north, fresh vegetables in late spring and early summer have their own characteristics, and when designing early summer dishes, it is necessary to ensure the original taste of the ingredients, and also take into account the suitability of the edible solar terms.
Zhan Junhao, founder of Fujian Great Aim Brand Positioning Consulting, said that the hot situation of the catering market during the "May Day" holiday reflects the strong demand for consumption and the active trend of the market. For brands, peak hour operations should not only focus on the quality of products and services, but also attract and meet customer needs through innovative marketing strategies, and maintain the consumer experience during peak periods. In addition, if the brand implements full-time operation, it needs to comprehensively consider multiple perspectives such as labor costs, consumption scenarios, and customer groups to ensure that it can continue to provide quality services.
Tourists take a tour of the Palace Museum. Visual China / Figure
/Logistics/Scenic Express Priority Sorting
So that tourists can travel lightly, without delaying the purchase of Beijing specialties, the delivery of specialties in other places has become a new demand. On Beijing's Qianmen Street, many tourists plan to mail home after buying local specialties, and the express outlets near the local scenic spots are also quite busy. "Recently, we can collect more than 300 specialty packages every day, which is nearly 2 times more than the daily one. Yang Jiansong, a courier at Zhongtong Beijing Xicheng Zhuangsheng outlets, said.
For fragile Beijing pastries and porcelain, express delivery companies such as Zhongtong will also provide professional packaging services. According to the Beijing Business Daily reporter, the Beijing Management Center will give priority to sorting and transiting the express mail issued by the scenic spots, especially the food and other express mail, to ensure that the first time to leave the port, to ensure that the tourist specialty package timeliness.
In terms of instant delivery, leisure and entertainment methods such as indoor meals with relatives and friends, camping and other leisure and entertainment methods are popular, and on some fresh e-commerce platforms, the sales of seasonal aquatic products, barbecue, fruits, beverages, ice cream and other categories will usher in explosive growth. At the same time, measures such as the priority transit of the delivery of special products in scenic spots and the extension of the business of express stations to 24 o'clock also provide convenience for consumers' express delivery needs.
A set of data from Dingdong Grocery shows that as the temperature in Beijing rises during the "May Day" period, the growth of ice cream sales is expected to double, and the sales of barbecue, aquatic products and other categories will increase by as much as 60%. The sales of more than 10 kinds of fresh aquatic products such as sea white shrimp, crayfish and sea bass will usher in a peak. At present, a variety of barbecue ingredients have been listed on the platform, covering beef and mutton, seafood and various family combination packages.
In addition, seasonal fruits such as watermelon, lychee, durian, and mango will also sell well on May Day. According to Dingdong North China Fruit Procurement, the overall fruit category in Beijing is expected to grow by 35%.
/Performances/More than 2,300 cultural events to choose from
During the "May Day" period, Beijing will launch more than 2,300 cultural activities and rich tourism product routes. Among them, there are a number of micro-vacation and cycling routes, and the museum and the surrounding tourism resources are designed in series, integrating rich elements such as Internet celebrity check-in places, performing arts, business districts, Beijing gifts, flower viewing and gardening, tourism special lines, and special activities, so as to facilitate citizens and tourists to have in-depth experience of cultural museums and leisure.
At the same time, 21 classic cultural tourism cycling routes such as "Riding the Canal Walking Universiade" and "Traveling in Western Beijing for Endless Riding Fun" have been launched, covering all districts of the city. In addition, in conjunction with Mentougou District, it integrates the cultural and tourism resources of the ancient business road, the ancient military road, and the ancient incense road, and launches 6 characteristic hiking routes of the Jingxi Ancient Road, as well as cultural experience activities such as Hanfu parade and national style check-in, around the themes of intangible cultural heritage, flower appreciation, and ancient villages. Cultural tourism experience bases such as Beijing Caibai Museum and Fanxing Drama Village will also launch more than 30 interactive experience activities in four categories: traditional culture, performing arts, nature, science and technology handicrafts.
Liu Bin, member of the party group and deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, introduced that the Beijing City Library will hold 12 reading promotion activities such as the "Little Lotus Talent Shows Sharp Corners" literary concert. Haidian District will hold a "Salute to Laborers" choral symphony concert. Shijingshan District will hold the national style carnival of the "Encounter with Western Beijing and Beauty" mode-mouth Guochao Cultural Festival. In addition, grassroots cultural activities such as square dances, choruses, "village evening" performances, and national fitness will also be carried out to enrich the holiday life of citizens.
In terms of enriching stage art performances, during the "May Day" holiday, Beijing will give full play to the advantages of gathering performing arts resources and hold 261 sets and 1,286 commercial performances in 136 performance venues to create a rich artistic atmosphere.
Among them, the much-watched Phoenix Legend "Auspicious Ruyi" concert, Pan Weibo's "Crazy Love" tour and Yang Naiwen's "MUSE Muse" concert will be staged at the National Stadium, Bloomage LIVE Wukesong and Beijing Exhibition Center Theater respectively, and the 2024 Beijing Infinity Music Festival and 2024 Beijing Super Strawberry Music Festival will also start the holiday carnival in the City Green Heart Forest Park and Beijing Shiyuan Park respectively.
Beijing Business Daily reporter He Qian, Hu Jingrong, Zhang Tianyuan, Han Xinyuan, Niu Qingyan
/Travel/Staggered peak "leakage" is still feasible
During this year's "May Day" holiday, people's willingness to travel has increased significantly, and the popularity of outbound travel and domestic long-term travel has risen. At the same time, the price of air tickets for some domestic routes has indeed declined, and on the whole, May 2-4 is the trough of air ticket prices.
According to the monitoring of the data of the flight ticket, the average price of domestic economy class air tickets during the "May Day" holiday was 852 yuan (excluding tax), down 1.13% year-on-year and 22% month-on-month. Prices did not increase on May 1 on many popular routes, and there are still low-cost direct flight tickets.
Industry insiders said that the reason is that on the one hand, the high-speed rail on the diversion of civil aviation, with the continuous optimization of the high-speed rail network, the competitive disadvantages of civil aviation in short- and medium-distance transportation are becoming more and more obvious, this phenomenon has continued from last year to this year;
In addition, more and more "small towns" are favored by young travelers during the May Day holiday. According to the report, travel bookings in fourth-tier cities and below during the May Day holiday increased by 140% year-on-year, and the growth rate was significantly higher than that of first- and second-tier cities. Among them, hotel bookings in the county market increased by 68% year-on-year, scenic spot ticket orders increased by 151% year-on-year, and cities with regional airports such as Tumshuke, Baoshan, Huaihua, Chifeng, Hotan, Heze and other cities saw a significant year-on-year increase in air ticket bookings, most of which exceeded 50%.
/Film Market/Animation is expected to become a dark horse in the "May Day" file
This year's "May Day" file presents the characteristics of a large number of films and rich genres. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of now, "The Siege of the Kowloon Walled City" temporarily ranks first in the box office list with a pre-sale box office of 57.09 million yuan, and the films "Spy Playing House Codename: White" and "Peacekeeping Anti-riot Team" rank second and third with 24.09 million yuan and 23.58 million yuan respectively.
Driven by both supply and demand, the film industry continues to recover and develop, and while the audience is hotly discussing the new "May Day" films, the film and television companies behind the finalized films have also attracted attention from the outside world. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, while introducing two animated films, "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Spy Playing House Codename: White", Chinese films are also associated with 4 new domestic films. In addition, behind the new "May Day" films, there are also listed film companies such as Jebsen Co., Ltd., Huanrui Century, Wanda Film, Tangde Film and Television, Baina Qiancheng, Hengdian Film and Television, and Bona Film.
In recent years, the demand for family movies has shown an upward momentum, especially in the popular period, the phenomenon of family watching movies is very prominent, and at the same time, the "two-dimensional" group dominated by young audiences has gradually become a new force in the film market.
|Pit Avoidance Guide|
Can't buy a ticket? It's important to plan well
Judging from the current booking situation, this year's "May Day" tourism popularity has increased steadily on the basis of last year's high. Problems such as short-term passenger flow and long queuing time affect the experience of tourists, and the carrying capacity of scenic spots is further tested. At the same time, it is a common problem that it is difficult to make reservations for major tourist attractions and cultural venues. Industry insiders suggest that you can make full use of the built-in functions of some map apps to mark the places you want to go to on the map in advance to plan routes and avoid traffic restriction areas. Use the real-time monitoring function of the scenic spot to stagger the peak flow of people.
Consumption Assassin? Shop around and keep a good voucher
The demand for travel during the "May Day" holiday is hot, and it is necessary to be vigilant against individual businesses taking the opportunity to adjust prices to cause disputes, such as "the tide of homestay price hikes and contract breaking" and "May Day travel encounters accommodation assassins". For the problems and disputes that may be encountered in accommodation, catering, and shopping, many travel experts suggest that after booking travel products on the online platform, you can confirm with the merchant by phone in time to prevent the merchant from inquiring about the online order, and the merchant and the online platform prevarication. When shopping, shop around and keep invoices and other consumption vouchers.
Wild spots? These risks should be taken care of
The information dissemination on the self-media platform is hot, and many "wild attractions" have entered the field of vision and become "Internet celebrity check-in places". These scenic spots often retain the natural and pristine features to attract tourists to explore, but due to the lack of management and supporting measures, they have also become a frequent place for safety accidents, and tourists get lost and injured from time to time. Industry experts suggest that when looking for niche tourist destinations, it is necessary to improve safety awareness, and must choose scenic spots that are safe and reliable, with guaranteed services, and not rush to unexplored "wild spots" in pursuit of novelty and put yourself in a dangerous situation.